The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes [33]
The problem was that not one of their 40 salespeople had ever called a CEO at any time for any reason. We role-played with them. We wrote scripts. We told them how to do it. But they were still ineffective. These people were more technology oriented and therefore not the types to call large-company CEOs (a problem covered in Chapter Nine). For the most part, these salespeople were not asserting themselves enough to even get past the receptionists or assistants, so they never even came close to delivering their scripts.
The CEO of this technology solutions company decided to hire me to show them how to do it. I got on the phone and recorded myself. In two hours, I made 50 calls, got two top CEOs on the phone, and talked my way into a meeting with one of them. I played this for the staff. I was winging it all the way because this was my first time pitching this material. The salespeople saw that, although the pitch wasn’t perfect, it was still good enough to close an appointment with a $4 billion company. They learned that CEOs of large companies are great visionaries and can be engaged if you have a great promise for their future. Offering this promise wasn’t as hard as these salespeople had thought. The next day, every salesperson started calling CEOs, and some of them started getting appointments.
8. Have Another Workshop on How to Improve
You’re deep into implementing this procedure. If there are any weak spots or areas to improve, your staff will know about them. With the carpet cleaning company, we did many workshops with the staff, asking them how to best implement this strategy. So if you’re having trouble implementing something, ask your staff how to do it better. Even on the assembly line, you can gather your people together and ask them how you could increase production. The surprising thing is that you may find that many of them have been frustrated for a while now and have great suggestions that were ignored by their immediate supervisor. So it’s worth your time, no matter how large your company may be, to get in the trenches and hear some of the staff’s ideas.
People like to be asked their opinion. Then when they give it, they’ll have a greater buy-in when you actually take advantage of the ideas they suggest. Make them work at it and perfect it in concept and in practice before you roll it out.
9. Monitor the Procedure Directly
In the case of the carpet cleaning up-sell, the owner of the company recorded the reps so I could hear the actual conversations. We corrected and monitored weekly. Some companies have people test something and then report back a month later. That’s crazy. You need to monitor weekly. Or, if it’s really important, monitor it every day so you can be sure that your staff is doing it properly and that it is bringing about the desired results. Monitor the procedure closely, observing and correcting behavior. No matter how well you spell it all out, some people will still miss some things. Monitor. Correct. Monitor….
Think of yourself as a military leader training your troops in the important art of hand-to-hand combat and survival. Do you want to have your people trying to figure out how to fight while they’re on the battle-field? Or, do you want to role-play the heck out of them so that when they get into battle, they are skilled and prepared?
Even when you’ve perfected the concept and are rolling out the policy, you’re not done with monitoring. The next phase is to randomly, but consistently, observe and correct the procedure even as it’s being implemented company-or departmentwide. Now you have trained your soldiers and they are in combat. The mistakes they make could cost lives. Don’t you